Update

I am seldom so happy to be wrong!

Given my heartbroken post last week and the heartfelt replies I received, I simply must report this.

My ten dollars was found!

I've been on the serving line since the incident. Shocker. My supervisor assured me that they were simply shorthanded and she needed me on the line, but I knew better. I'd screwed up. And it put me into a deeper funk over the whole thing.

So this afternoon, as I cleared away uneaten food and Cathy counted up her cash at the end of shift, she noticed something odd in the drawer. Something really far back. Something really wedged, almost totally concealed in the wheeled workings of the pop-out register drawer. After a little finagling, she pulled out...a ten-dollar bill.

Wouldn't you know, I'd checked the drawer. Multiple times. Lifted out the plastic cash divider and looked under it and everything. Believe me, I will exhaust every option before coming to the conclusion that I've been betrayed.

All I can figure is that most of the scenario remains the same. I was in the middle of separating and counting the cash, and I did wander too far from it for a minute without remembering to lock up. But rather than the bill being lifted from my drawer by sticky fingers, it caught on something as the drawer was closed and re-opened, and somehow got pulled to the back. Where, after several openings and closings, it became thoroughly wedged in the back wheels of the drawer.

Cathy ran her figures without the extra ten first, and balanced. My heart soared. "They didn't steal from me!"

"Yeah, well," she said. "Don't think they wouldn't. There are plenty of kids here who would, given half a chance."

Well, she may be right. But today, my friends. Today they are exonerated, and all is right in my world.

Shanghaied Sawbuck

Honestly, I'm not sure if it's a blessing or a curse.

As I've said, I generally think the best of people. I really do. It's not naivete - I've been around the block a time or two - I seem to be hardwired to be naturally trusting and optimistic even when I know better. The upside to this is a generally sunny disposition and low blood pressure. The downside is that when people DO disappoint me, it hurts. A lot.

Anyway. My day.

Now, I've worked at Jack-in-the-Box. I've worked at Wal-Mart three times over the years. Hell, I've worked at Wal-Mart in the Electronics Department at Christmas. And every time I've run a register, it's balanced to the penny at the end of my shift. And I started the same way at this job, too. But lately my totals have been screwed up a lot lately, usually because of a mathematical error on my part, causing me to hold everyone up while I recount and check deposit reports until I find where I don't agree. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe it's the fact that the ventilation system broke and it's been around 100 degrees in the cafeteria the last several shifts I've worked. Maybe I'm just going senile at the ripe old age of thirty-something. But it's making the perfectionist in me scream.

Today, I said, I'm done. I will be triply careful, and I will balance the first time. And I paid meticulous attention to my counts. So when my total came up TEN DOLLARS short today, I knew I'd finally balanced to the penny. Because I also knew precisely that I was missing one ten-dollar bill from the currency. I'd walked away from my drawer for thirty seconds after my shift and forgotten that I hadn't yet locked the door where the kids come in to my line - something I usually do as soon as the last student is gone. And then there wasn't a ten where a ten should have been.

One of the children stole from me today.

Fervently hoping that I was wrong, I dashed back to my terminal to look for the ten. Perhaps it had fallen on the floor or under my register. I got down on my knees and scanned under everything; then still on my knees, I lowered my head to the floor and cried.

We recounted everything to make sure it really wasn't a miscalculation, and then my supervisor said she'd document the missing ten for me. I really don't care. It was ten dollars. I would gladly have replaced it from my purse. Heck, I probably won't even be at this job next year. I cried because I was just so hurt and disappointed that any of 'my kids' would steal from me. I know better than to believe every one of them would pass up the opportunity to swipe money from my drawer...but I still believed it.

Sometimes, I really wish I didn't think so highly of people.

Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

The new tradition of occasionally rewarding debit card use with little free rewards is growing...largely because we continue to have useless stuff to get rid of. Apparently they did it again yesterday while I was off serving at the elementary school. Prize of the day: paper cars.

No, really. Apparently it was some sort of promotional swag given to us by one of our pizza suppliers. It consisted of large stacks of perforated 3x5 cards which, when punched out and folded in a few places, made crappy paper toy cars with the Tony's Pizza logo on them. Whee!

There was still a fairly large stack of them sitting by my register today, which I neither actively promoted nor withheld. If any kid asked for one, or said "Hey, I wish I'd gotten one of those yesterday," I handed one over. Or two, or three. Have fun, kids, create your own Tony's Pizza convoy!

But I wasn't asked very often, and the matter drifted to the back of my mind, thus leading to possibly the most confusing conversation I've had with a student.

One of my favorite kids (yes, I have favorite kids. Don't tell them.) came up to me, an owlish bespectacled gamer kid who liked to occasionally chat with me over the newest Guitar Hero or Xbox 360 games. He asked me if he could have a new card.

"Sure," I said. "But it costs three dollars."

Blink. Blink. Then he giggled. "Good one. Really, though, can I have one?"

"Of course. But you have to bring in three dollars."

He continued to look at me with an uncomfortable smirk, a half-smile that said she must be kidding, but when will she drop it? He reached out uncertainly and gave me a playful punch on the arm. "No, really. I dropped mine yesterday, and someone stepped on it and it broke into pieces."

I was utterly baffled. This was usually a pretty smart kid who knew the drill. What wasn't he getting? And also, your debit card is that fragile? "Look, I don't make the rules. I'm sorry, but you know if you lose your card, you need to bring me three dollars so that I can order a new one for you."

Understanding spread over his face. "Car," he said. "Those little cars she was giving out yesterday. Can I have another one?"

Ooooohhhhh! Go me. Embarrassed, I reached behind me and handed him a couple of punch-out cars. "Sorry man. You know I wasn't here yesterday!" I laughed.

Three dollars, for a car in danger of falling to pieces if stepped on? Silly lunchlady.

Of Peewees and Peas

When I was originally hired, you may recall that I had to spend a little time learning various jobs that I may have to cover, including elementary school duty. I was honestly beginning to think it would never come up, until yesteray. Rosie called in sick...and I was asked to cover. This is a job I only helped with, following her around and doing as instructed, and only three or four times nine months ago.

Fortunately, it went pretty well. Muscle memory kicked in past my initial self-doubt, and I successfully drove the big truck in the rain, backed it up and unloaded it in the proper area, and set up for the elementary school children. Who, apparently, are really not fond of change.

Once kids started to pour in, they sized me up and surmised that I was Not Rosie. Which made me persona non grata in their book, and I was eyed with a wary look that suggested perhaps I might have poisoned Rosie. Or the food.

The pace of the serving was hard to gauge. For the first line, I set up plenty of trays in advance, remembering how quickly they began to disappear once the children arrived. However, the kindergarten set arrived a few minutes late and were surprisingly few in number...meaning most of them got trays of pizza and peas that had been sitting and getting cold. So I eased up on the advance preparation a little, only to be deluged by the fourth graders. Within two minutes of their arrival I was out of food and barely filling trays as they were snatched up one at a time.

For the most part it went smoothly, although I did get into a strange and unnecessary disagreement with a third grader. When she approached the counter, she didn't like what she saw.

"I don't like peas," she told me. "I want a tray with no peas on it."

And I want a dream date with Masi Oka, kid. It's school policy that we have to serve a nutritionally balanced lunch. "I'm sorry," I said. "All the trays come with peas on them."

"I don't like peas," she sniffed at me, as though I simply hadn't heard the first time. "Can you make me a tray with no peas on it?" Nope, sorry.

As she got increasingly agitated over the issue and kids began to maneuver around the traffic jam she created, I pushed a tray toward her decisively. "Look," I murmured. "No one's actually going to make you eat these peas. Ignore them."

And she gave me a Look, one I'd never seen on such a small face. It was an utterly withering look, an Oh-No-You-Didn't look, and after a gentle nudge to her friend I was getting it in stereo. Then she grudgingly left with pizza, milk, fruit cup...and peas.

So I arrived back tired and humbled. Tired, because I'd loaded and driven a food truck, packed and unpacked, served alone, and come back with enough time left to join in the dishwashing and clearing up at my own school. Humbled, because Rosie does this every day, except that she does so after coming in at 6:30am and cooking until lunchtime, and she's my grandmother's age.

This morning, when I told Rosie how the little ones had taken to me in her absence, her eyes absolutely twinkled. "Oh yeah," she said. "They're my babies."

And she can have them.

The Cookie Grumbles

When I arrived at work today, the special treat du jour was a fresh-from-the-oven Otis Spunkmeyer cookie, one with every full student lunch purchased. Tried one - they were absolutely delightful. Warm and soft, with the chocolate chips still just a little melty.

As luck would have it, I had to serve today, and the cookies were quite popular. And why not? The cookies were essentially free; they did not count as one of the two side dish choices. Out of several hundred children, I had perhaps three or four turn down their cookie.

Then, as the shift wound to a close, I ran out of cookies - with ten children left in the line.

These ten children looked broken-hearted. "We're the LAST kids," one of them said to me. "Can we get anything special?"

And I looked. All I could find were leftovers from our most recent debit card reward giveaway - a practice started last April by my previous supervisor to encourage children to remember their cards, but which has largely become a way to give away stuff we need to get rid of. This last time it was a box of individually wrapped cinnamon grahams nearing expiration. Their unhappiness was understandably unassauged by the substitute offer...and even so I only had six.

I was at an impasse. These ten had done nothing to deserve being sent away empty-handed, and though I'd heard Rosie would be returning from the elementary school momentarily with her leftover cookies, I didn't want to leave them waiting in line indefinitely as their short lunch break ticked away. As the grumbling increased, I told the kids "Let me check one last time" and disappeared into the kitchen without much hope, wondering with vague bemusement whether I was going to have a mini-riot on my hands. And suddenly there she was, still apple-cheeked from the bitter cold outside, bringing in empty serving trays, boxes of Uncrustables...and the very last tray of cookies.

As I returned to my serving station with cookies in hand, the kids actually cheered. It felt a little theatrical, like a cheesy commercial. You could almost see the camera just over my shoulder, catching a little of my profile and my two arms outstretched with the tray of moist delicious chocolate-chip cookies, and just beyond that point of view the cheering faces of the children as my profile passed through the doorway and into the brightly-lit lunchroom.

So there you have it folks, I got a standing ovation today for cookies. And I didn't even bake them!

Number Crunching

t's a battle I never seem to be on the right side of.

Last spring I mentioned, on several occasions, my frustration with kids who insist on memorizing their student I.D. numbers and entering them on the keypad instead of having their debit cards ready to scan.

Earlier this fall, I expounded on the troubles caused by the temporary paper debit cards issued to the students pending the arrival of their permanent, hard plastic cards.

Because those little paper cards almost NEVER scanned properly, I was having to look up students manually as they came through. Ask kid "What's your name?", hit 'Account', then 'Name Lookup', enter a few letters of the name, and select the proper result from the list. Sounds like a lot, but I can actually do this very quickly, having spent my entire adult life in clerical and transcription jobs. However, my supervisor insisted that this was slowing down the line and that I needed to get on the kids' cases to...memorize their I.D. numbers and type them in when they come through. This annoyed me to no end, for two reasons:

1. This is exactly what I spent three months trying to discourage last year, because kids so frequently screw up typing their numbers in, which actually slows down the process; and

2. It's a new school year, meaning that half the school body consists of recently elementary school kids who don't know their numbers. Each time kids came through with their defective cards and no knowledge of their ID numbers, I'd have to look them up manually anyway, THEN stop to write down their six-digit number on a scrap of paper, give them the paper and lecture them on getting it memorized. As you can imagine, this really did nothing to improve checkout speeds. Fifth graders are distractible, and have an unsurprising tendency to lose small pieces of paper.

"C'mon," I'd urge them, on the third or fourth day that I rewrote their numbers for them. "It's shorter than your phone number. You can memorize your phone number."

And so it went on. Honestly, I didn't mind pulling them up by names - as I say, I'm very quick with the system, it gives me a chance to start memorizing their names, and it's actually slower for me to stop and remind them all. Mainly I continued nagging because when I'm perceived as being too indulgent with the kids, I occasionally find myself relegated to serving so that my supervisor can run register herself and scold the kids herself in her own, much sterner way.

After several weeks, the new plastic debit cards did indeed arrive. I'd say not a moment too soon - at this point 98 percent of the paper cards had been lost, thrown away with lunch trays, laundered, folded, smeared, or otherwise made to barely resemble a scrap of paper that barely resembled an identification card - but since they had never really worked anyway, having the kids continue to bring them really served no purpose other than to enforce the habit of carrying one.

But now, they had shiny new cards that they were, for the first time in their young lives, required to carry at all times, identification and meal card all in one. But you know what? By this time they were starting to catch on to the keypad system, and many had finally learned their numbers. And many felt that this was simply waaaay less hassle than actually remembering to bring their cards and have them in hand at time of checkout.

Enter my supervisor, who tells me that I'm being too soft on the kids and that I really need to get the kids' cases to...stop typing their numbers and start bringing their cards. Her main concern now - when they mistype their numbers, there's a chance they may actually pull up another student's account, increasing the risk that the wrong student may be charged (unlikely - I always check the photo and name against the student in front of me).

Try explaining this to a fifth grader.

Me: I know it's hard to remember your card. But what if you type the wrong number and someone else ends up paying for your lunch?

Kid: Sounds good to me!

Me: Oh-kaaay...what if some other kid types the wrong number and you pay for HIS lunch?

Kid: Uhhhhh....I wouldn't like that. But I can type in the right number!

So, mystery solved. Having entered this profession near the end of a school year last year, I often wondered why we have such a battle over debit cards vs. keypad entry. Now I realize that it's because we spend the first month of school training them to do this.

Next, please!

With Friends Like These

You know...those lunchladies are a mischievous bunch.

I live in one of those.....*shudder*....football towns. College football takes over the minds, car windshields, and wardrobes of nearly the entire population starting in the fall. Personally, I hate football, but it's not a fact I tend to advertise. 'Round here, it's a bit like admitting to hating puppies or mugging small children.

Apparently, there's some big game this weekend, and the lunchladies have gotten permission to wear their colors and State shirts and such tomorrow instead of the regular "Choose Healthy" logo shirts.

They were excitedly discussing this when I arrived this morning. Rosie from the kitchen turned an eager eye to me. "You're going to wear your State shirt tomorrow too, right?"

I blinked owlishly, less out of confusion and more from the fact there was simply no speculation in her question whatsoever as to the issue of whether I even owned such attire.

When the shocking truth of my utter lack of sports enthusiasm came to light, I was assured that Rosie would be happy to bring a shirt for me to wear tomorrow. "You have to show your spirit with us tomorrow," she twinkled. "I'd hate to see you have an unfortunate accident. Why, there might be an unexpected grease spill on the floor or something!"

After the shift was over, I headed for home, making a mental note to at least look for something in the team's colors to wear in case the shirt was forgotten tomorrow. Hey, I'm not into organized sports...but I'm a good sport. My mind wandered as the light changed to "Walk" and I headed across the intersection to my nearby home.

HOONK!!

When my heart restarted, I peered into the car I had been crossing in front of to see my supervisor Cathy in the driver's seat, doubled over with laughter and nearly in tears.

Oh, those ladies. Sometimes I think they'd fit right in with the Hell's Grannies. Better get in line before they send a violent gang of Keep Left signs after me.

(NOTE: I would like to stress that this is all in good fun, and that the Hell's Lunchladies have, in fact, never committed any acts of violence against my person. *cough*help*cough*)

Lunch l337y

"I used to be 'With It'. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and wierd. It'll happen to YOU." -- Abe Simpson

One thing that perpetually cracks me up is the dogged belief of children that theirs is the only generation that's With It. It's true, in many aspects I am quite out of touch with the younger crowd. It's true, I don't 'get' a lot of their television shows, their music, or why that have to play it so gosh-darned LOUD for that matter. But children also invariably believe that as an adult, I don't 'get' video games. Being over the age of thirty, surely I would never touch such a thing.

Silly rabbit! We're the kids of Generation X. The MTV generation. The pop-culture obsessed slackers who grew up with Reagan and Star Wars and the Cold War. And we were the first generation to grow up with video games. I myself had an Adam computer and an Atari 2600. I played Infocom games on my Commodore 64, and I knew that if I went into the darkness that I might get eaten by a grue. I was thrilled in high school to receive an NES for Christmas, and spent long hours tracking down Triforce pieces, for who else could save the kingdom of Hyrule? Sure, video games were for kids...we just never stopped playing as gradually we grew up to be really big kids with jobs and kids of our own.

As I sat at my register today checking student after student through the lunch line today, I heard an argument start up a few feet down the line. I couldn't follow the conversation (nor was I trying), but I gathered that three boys were discussing the game Halo. By the time they got close to me their argument was making it difficult to hear the other children, and the gist of it seemed to be - this is a direct quote - "Dude, you're GAY if you don't like Halo!!"

"Boys!" I said. "Come on, now. I like Halo just as much as you do, but could we please discuss this a little more quietly?"

All three stopped conversing and looked at me with extreme amusement. "Do you even know what Halo IS?" one of them scoffed.

"Of course I do," I replied, "I played all three of them."

Their complete and utter overreaction to this news was hilarious. All three of them started visibly, and two of them yelled "Whoa!"

Heheh. Oh noez, teh lunchlady can has Halo! Pwn3d!

Ratted Out!

Kids just never know when a good thing shouldn't be pushed.

One entree, two sides, one milk. It's my mantra, what I say to children day after day. These are the components of a "Type A" school lunch. Entrees are required to contain a certain quantity of carbohydrates and protein, and children must choose two different sides, presumably to encourage a wider selection of food groups; this is a state mandate, not a suggestion.

But, it's full of holes. A surprisingly large number of children like to just get an entree and two juice cups as their sides, with apple being the most popular by far. By the state guidelines, this is okay with the lunchladies as long as they are two different flavors of juices.

This strikes me as incredibly inane. I know they're trying to start teaching the kids to make their own choices, hopefully healthy choices. But kids generally aren't going to make healthy choices if they can possibly help it. They come through my line with two identical juices, and when I tell them the rule they tell me they really can't stand the other kinds. And I relate. I hate grape juice. I hate orange juice. What do I care? Kids are choosing nachos and cheese with juice and more juice for lunch, and have the right to do so. Is this nutritional trainwreck going to be turned around if I make them mix up the juices? So I tend to - quietly - tell them "Just go." And they know I'm bending the rule for them.

Well, I got a talkin' to today by the other cashier, the lady who runs the line on the other side of the cafeteria. Kids don't always end up in the same line every day - sometimes kids who usually see me will end up on the other end for a day. And when instructed to take a juice back and get something else, what do you think they say to her?

"Well, the OTHER lunchlady lets us do it this way!"

She wanted to know if this was true. And to remind me that this was state policy. Of course I told her I had merely forgotten; that I didn't always catch what types of juices they had on their trays as they rapidly passed my register. And I assured her that I would of course take more care in the future to make sure it didn't happen again.

So there it is. Kids, you thought it was a stupid rule. I agreed with you. And now you've ensured that I will have to enforce it, you geniuses.

Walking Taco, Hidden Puddle

Find me the desk jockey in Food Services that came up with 'walking tacos'. I would like to cordially invite this person to come and cover my shift on Walking Taco day.

It seems I shall be working the lines for a while, with no return to cashiering in sight. Well, that's okay. As I've mentioned, it's not a bad job, though it is hot and tiring work. And it does take a little finesse to set up properly. You work in a fairly small space behind a counter, trying to keep everything within easy reach. Trays on the left. Hot foods in the warmers in front of you. Kitchen trolley rolled up to one side with a large container of side salad and a large container of tortilla chips for the nachos. Grab tray, fill, hand to student, rinse, repeat.

"Walking tacos" consist of a big gloppy helping of taco meat and toppings...served right on the tray with a bag of Fritos, presumably with the idea that the kid can spoon the toppings into the Fritos bag and eat the mish-mash like a taco salad. So in addition to the hot foods, I have to find room for a large container of tortilla chips AND a large container of Fritos, a salad server AND three jumbo containers of shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, and diced tomatoes, all of which have to be at waist level and sitting on ice packs to keep them cold. This requires a secondary trolley, so I'm really parked in. This also takes a lot more time, as there are now extra steps to putting together each entree, and children are notoriously wishy-washy about answering the age-old question "lettuce, cheese, tomatoes?" Sure, it's a small difference in time per order, but about two hundred kids come through my line with a very limited amount of time for lunch, so it adds up.

On top of this, my accident-prone nature seems to be flaring up again, though I swear I'm only partially to blame this time. For one thing, I'm learning the hard way to double-check the settings on my warming trays, as whoever puts food on my line before I come in has been setting them to 10, or "High". (On a scale of 1-10, they should generally be no higher than 5.) Two days ago, I scalded myself with water from the nacho cheese warmer...and then noticed that the cheese cups within were starting to bubble and WARP. Yesterday, I again managed to burn my hand when I attempted to take the lid off the corn - sure enough, set to High. The ensuing chicken-like hand flapping dance was accompanied by the sort of litany inspired by having a large audience of attentively listening fifth graders. "Goh-errr....BLESS it, mother...how-wooooow-wow!"

To make the day complete -at one point I began to run low on supplies, so I had to navigate around the extra equipment and make my way back to the fridges for more. As I turned the corner, I hit a small puddle in the doorway caused by a leaking freezer. A split second later, I was on the floor in the doorway with a jammed wrist and feeling very foolish, having just taken a pratfall worthy of Cartoon Network. And still with an audience of wide-eyed younglings. Goodness knows what they're starting to think, but it's probably not far from the mark.

This lady's hilarious, they're thinking. She probably trips over cordless phones.

Fear and Nachos

School is back in session! Time for me to get back into the swing of things....and time for many kids to adjust to a whole new way of doing things.

I work at an intermediate school. In this area, 5th and 6th graders go to 'intermediate' after elementary, but before middle school (known, where I was going through the system, as "junior high"). Thus, half my students were fresh out of elementary school, where their days were spent in one class, with one teacher, their tasks and destinations dictated to them hour by hour. These kids are unaccustomed to class schedules, lockers and campus maps. And they're unaccustomed to any sort of choice in their lunch menu.

Also, there's been some staff shifting this year. We lost some folks and gained a new girl....unfortunately, this forced some juggling of roles, and although I had come in expecting to return to my usual register, I found myself serving. This in itself was a bit of a disappointment - I really like cashiering. It's a softer job, I can sit down a lot more, and it gives me more opportunity to interact with the kids and learn their names. Add to this the fact that the school's air conditioning still has not been turned on, which amplified the already considerable heat of standing in an enclosed corner of the cafeteria, leaning over steaming trays of fries and boiled hot dogs.

But this is the job. I work where needed. Suck it up, Songbird, and smile!

The heat was nearly overwhelming, and I found myself constantly resisting the urge to wipe the sweat from my face with my gloved hands. Vaguely, I thought of surgeons, and wished I had my own personal assistant to mop my brow from time to time. Quick, someone call Mike Rowe. I've got a Dirty Job for him!

But it was a great day. It was sweet to see all the fresh new faces, looking interested and excited...and a little overwhelmed. I was happy to coach them through the lunch process - one entree, two sides, one milk. Yes, you can choose which ones you want. Move down the line and give your card to the cashier, sweetie! And they were all so polite. I think fear had a lot to do with it...but I truly hope it lasts after they've grown comfortable.

One more interesting observation. The fifth graders ordered lots - LOTS - of nachos. For some reason, "nachos and cheese" are one of the alternative choices for the main entree, a baffling choice that I've never approved of. Nachos and cheese do not constitute a lunch. A snack, perhaps, or a side item. But after five years of accepting the lunch they were given, these ten-year-olds were given choices, and they realized hey, I can have nachos and cheese...for lunch! I sold nearly triple the usual amount of this particular item, and all in the fifth grade shift. Once the sixth graders began to stream in, the novelty factor vanished, and hot dogs became the lunch of choice.

And here I sit, my feet aching, back sore, shirt soaked, smelling strongly of eau de hot dog water, and still feelin' pretty good. A successful first day!

School of Fish

Lunch Lady Land is officially re-open for business! Well....almost.

School starts on Wednesday. As a city schools employee, I received notification in the mail last week that I was to attend "customer service training" on Monday (today), followed by CPR training. Tomorrow we report to the kitchen to work 'until done', presumably getting everything dusted off, reassembled, stocked and ready to go when the surge of fresh little faces comes through the lines on Wednesday.

I was unsure of what to expect in three hours of 'customer service training', but oh....oh, ye Gods, the reality surpassed my imagination. Initially lulled into complacency by the fresh bagels and passable coffee at the door, I greeted familiar faces and settled in. As photocopies were passed around, my eyes glazed and my heart sank in horrified comprehension. Michael Scott would have felt right at home. I felt as though my spleen were attempting to reach up and throttle me.

Yes, my friends, I had unwittingly walked right into....a motivational seminar.

The title of said seminar was - I kid you not - FISH! Sticks. This is a genuine motivational package employed by many companies, based on the business practices of the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Washington. A kitschy little program in the same vein as "The One Minute Manager" and "Hey! Who Moved My Freakin' Cheese?". We were shown a 17-minute video on "how do they keep the vision alive?" laced with inspiring jargon and vague niceties, the gist of which was:

1. We can use the words "vision" and "commit" many, many times in seventeen minutes, and often many times per sentence.

2. We can tell when someone is being inconsistent with the vision by refusing to have fun.

3. We used to be a boring place to work, as people had to walk allllll the way around the counter to retrieve fish for customers. Now we throw fish at each other, and it is lighthearted and hilarious!

Folks, there was more! There were team exercises. There was slogan writing. There were brightly colored stuffed fish, which were tossed to us as prizes for participating in discussion. Commit it, be it, coach it. What does vision mean to you? What does it mean to BE a vision? Commit to the vision. Have a vision of the commitment. You know, I thought, I'm having a vision of my own commitment right now!

One of the final exercises of the long morning involved us calling out what we like to see in our fellow employees and ourselves, as the speaker sketched appropriately labeled little fish to the whiteboard. "Loyal!" someone chimed in. "Dependable!" trilled another.

"Breaded, with a nice tartar sauce?"I volunteered. Mostly titters, a few odd looks. I shrugged. "Hey, it's lunchtime."

I've got to give her points for good humor. Amongst all the friendly, dependable, honest, hardworking little fish, she did indeed add a "breaded with a nice tartar sauce" fish.

Here Comes Summer

Well folks, this will be the last update from the Mystery Meat files for a while, as I am now officially off work! Ahh, the lazy hazy crazy days that stretch before me now...

Last day wasn't too bad. I actually had to come for a full day, instead of my usual three-hour shift. First thing in the morning, we began packing sack lunches. Rows upon rows of brown paper bags: insert PBJ, bag of chips, apple slices, carrots, cheese sticks. Rinse, repeat.

Then on to the cleaning. Now, while I'm sure my faithful readers would just love a blow-by-blow recap of this, I'll just mention two of the highlights.

One: we threw away two hundred pounds of cheese. Really, I counted. Apparently someone didn't rotate the stock properly, and cheese that was supposed to be fine all summer was apparently last year's cheese. It wasn't a "science experiment" by any stretch, but it was visibly freezerburned.

Two: I got a free chemical peel, I think. Commercial ovens suck to clean. I wore gloves, but it was still impossible to avoid getting some cleaner on me as I scrubbed, and within half an hour I did indeed have a couple of sores on my arms just above the end of the gloves. And for the higher ovens, I had to stand on a stool and reach waaaaay in, with my ample fanny sticking out like some off-kilter homage to Pooh's fateful visit to Rabbit's house. I got oven cleaner in my hair, even. Given the chemical burns on my arms, it's a wonder that didn't give me an interesting new do.

During all this, lunch time arrived and we had to stop cleaning periodically to pass out sack lunches and ring up kids one last time. I was very lenient, given the circumstances...though I wasn't specifically permitted to do so, I waved through the few kids who didn't have lunch money. It's the last day, it's a sack lunch that will be otherwise thrown away. Who cares? Mrs. Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day!

And so my lunchlady adventures have drawn to a close for the time being. I shall leave you with this little tidbit, from the white-board notice I was asked to draw up to remind the kids (in yet ANOTHER way) to pay up their accounts during the last week of school.

Mrs. Grinch Redux

For the last few weeks of school, the credit allowance was removed. With about three hundred dollars in negative student account balances on the books, there's been a real push to get the kids paid up before the summer vacation. Ergo: from May 15th until the last day of school, charging was absolutely, positively not allowed. Any kid who did not have enough money to pay up front for lunch got a milk and one of those dreadful wafer bars.

I confiscated many lunches. And they did not take the new policy well.

One kid cried. Inconsolably. I explained as gently as I could that he did not have enough money. I explained that he would still get a milk and a peanut butter bar, which would certainly keep him from starving until three o'clock. And when he brought in lunch money tomorrow, he would surely get a nice hot lunch.

But no. He took a few steps away from my register, laid his forehead on a table, and began to sob. And there was NO talking to him. I tried, but I couldn't even get him to lift up his head. Teachers came over. No luck. This went on for a while. They did at least eventually steer him away from the register and out into the cafeteria area, and I don't know what happened from there. But wow.

But that was rare. For the most part, it was hard to feel too bad about it. Maybe my Grinch-y heart is hardening somewhat. It's amazing though, just how many of the chronic offenders - kids who claim they just really have trouble getting the money in, are always riding that negative limit and then bring in just enough to continue getting lunch - only needed to be given the alternate lunch once. Next day, there was a check from mom, with enough money to cover whatever was left on those final two weeks.

One kid got aggressive. Not physically...just aggressive in that boisterous, entitled, I-can-abuse-customer-service-people kinda way.

"What do you mean?" he ranted, "I can still charge! You always let me charge a couple lunches!"

Me: "No, I'm sorry. It's been the policy since May 15th. I can't allow any student to charge."

Him: "Well nobody told ME!" Right. You missed the letter home to every student in the school. And the notice read on the morning announcements not once but several times, both before and after the deadline. I don't think so.

He paced, searching his repertoire. "Well still, I didn't know I didn't have any money. You didn't tell me I had no money!"

Again, um, no. Keenly aware that it can be easy to lose track of such things, I've made a point since the 15th of telling children as they pass through my line: "You have two/one lunch(es) left on your account, you need to bring in some money soon." "That was your last lunch, sweetie, please bring lunch money with you tomorrow or I can't sell you a hot lunch." I have the information right there. On a big screen. Which the children invariably look at as they check out, largely because they like the fact that their picture is on it, but still.

I held out the bar. He practically batted it away, snarling, "If I can't have my lunch, I don't want that. I'm calling my Mom. I'm going to tell her about this." And off he skulked, leaving me to quiver in my apron over the tattling I was about to receive.

When he came through my line the next day, he slammed a fiver down on the counter in front of me. "I have money today. I'm taking my lunch. I won't have to call my Mom."

I treated him to my most witheringly unconcerned look. "That's so very nice for you."

Not the most mature response, I know. Hey. He started it!

The Tell-Tale Wafer

With today's shift now over, we have a mere SIX days of school to go, which puts us in a 'clearance' mode of sorts. With the exception of products like condiment packets and some canned goods which have a long shelf life, most everything has to be gone by June 5th. On that day, whatever remains will probably be divvied up the way it was over Spring Break.

Yesterday, it was free juice pops...everyone who came through my line was entitled to a free grape juice pop, no matter what they were buying. Today the ice cream came out, to be offered as a side or as an a la carte item for purchase. Fortunately, due to an recent aggressive campaign of notes and calls home, most of the kids now have enough money on their accounts for the remainder of school year and can afford the occasional extra, so the Side Swap Pileup wasn't too bad today. But there were moments!

The Chutzpah Award today goes to a little snip of a 5th grader who came through with one side and two ice creams, only to find that he did not have enough money for an extra. So he handed me the side - a cup of Nilla Wafer pudding - and tried to take off with his two ice creams.

"Hold it," I said. "Umm. Have you been eating this?"

He stopped, then reluctantly shuffled closer to the register. "What? No."

"Well....where'd the Nilla Wafer go?" Each cup had been filled with banana pudding and garnished with a Nilla Wafer. He had handed me a cup of banana pudding, garnished with an obvious little wedge-shaped dent...and a lot of crumbs. He briefly looked at me like a deer in headlights, then recovered and gave me a noncommittal shrug.

I swear I could hear crickets chirping as I looked at him, then the pudding, and then again at him, hoping he would 'fess up and make the honest swap. But I'm guessing he took my hesitation for uncertainty, because when I finally set the pudding on his tray myself and retrieved one of the ice creams, I saw a look flash across his face that distinctly telegraphed: Dang, she didn't go for it. His pal behind him in line chuckled as he walked away defeated.

Oh yeah. Score one for the Decreasingly Gullible Noob Lunchlady.

Blackout!

What a day! When I arrived for work this morning, it became quickly apparent that the power had gone out just before I arrived. Who knows why. In my little town, periodic mystery blackouts are the norm...particularly in the spring, and in totally arbitrary patterns. You can lose all power and sit fuming in the dark as the sounds of your next-door neighbors merrily sniggering at Everybody Loves Raymond waft through their living room window. It could be out for two minutes or two days.

I proceeded to the cafeteria in darkness to find the kitchen crew all sitting together under an emergency backup light, discussing possible courses of action. In the adjacent kitchen, multiple trays of frozen pizza (why do the 'interesting' stories always occur on Pizza Day?) sat in near-total blackness beside defunct ovens, and fridges full of milks, fruits and salads were slowly and inexorably thawing. The obvious and reasonable solution would have been to send the kids home - no telling how long the blackout would last and this was going to be a real problem - but word came down from the main office that we would not be closing. Scramble time.

So, let the chaos commence! Obviously the 'hot' food wouldn't be feasible today, so it was time to dig through the stores for ready-to-eat options. The PBJ Uncrustables, the tortilla chips, the snack packs. The hamburger buns, thrown together with sliced turkey from the rapidly warming fridge to make deli sandwiches for those kids with peanut allergies. All sorted through with flashlights and transferred to the gym, the only large room with natural lighting. And gym class was in progress as we tried to sort this out. Honestly, a stray ball missed my face by inches as we set up our long line of tables along one side of the gym.

When lunch began, the setup consisted of a check-in table near the entrance, where we attempted to collect names from the surging swell of children before sending them to the buffet line to pick up their items. On the other end of the gym, students with their trays of food clustered together on bleachers or sat together on the floor to eat. It was stiflingly hot, noisy and crowded, and I was vaguely reminded of a refugee camp. Or a prison camp. Hold on to yer spork, kid. Any kid loses his spork gets a night in the box.

The power finally returned near the end of the lunch rush, and I was faced with a new challenge: take the hastily scribbled lists of three different cashiers and enter all the lunch information normally taken over a two-hour period into the computer by hand. Ten single-spaced pages of student names - spell name on touch screen, pull up account, make the appropriate transaction, rinse, repeat. And though I had strongly urged them to have kids hold off on money transactions until tomorrow, they had also accepted cash and checks in big disorganized piles. And the system often behaves in erratic ways when it's been shut down unexpectedly. When all the names were finally entered about half an hour after my shift should have ended, my register informed me that I was approximately $500 short. Later it recognized my transactions, but mixed breakfast reports in with lunch and told me I was at least fifty dollars short. Then thirty-eight dollars. At one point I had to leave to pick up my son from school, take him home, and then return because we could not leave until the totals balanced.

Two hours after the end of my shift, we had it down to seven cents short and sagely decided that it was an acceptable variance. Anyone who begrudged me that seven cents would have found that I would happily give them the seven cents myself...probably nasally.

I Scream, You Scream

Spring has sprung! It's mighty warm out...and even warmer in the cafeteria. I've taken up stashing a few water bottles of my own in the freezer near the register. I'm also finding that I 'need' things from the walk-in freezer more often these days...don't ask me what, but I'm sure it'll take me a minute to find it! But most of all, the advent of warm weather means that we are now serving ice cream with lunch far more often, which often leads to what I call the Side Swap Pile-up.

It works like this. For what is called a "Type A" lunch, a kid needs to choose one entree, two sides, and a milk. That gets charged the standard lunch price, $2.25. A la carte or extra items beyond those get charged separately. This can be particularly important to the free and reduced kids...buying a Type A lunch costs them either nothing or forty cents, whereas individual items cost anywhere from fifty cents to $1.75 apiece.

The small freezer is at the end of the line, right near my register, and contains the ice cream. In today's case, there were two kinds: ice cream sandwiches and frozen juice pops, identified as a side by a small sign beside them. So the kids would get their entrees from the server, choose two sides along the line, then reach the freezer and spot the ice cream. They would then decide to swap out one of their sides for an ice cream, but instead of returning the other item to its proper place would merely set it on top of the freezer or on the edge of the milk refrigerator. Between rushes, I had to clear away the ever-growing piles of juice cups, carrots, apple slices, etc....the Side Swap Pileup.

One audacious young man cracked me up, forcing me to quickly put on my "this isn't funny" smirk to avoid encouraging him. He slid on up to my register with one entree and TWO ice cream sandwiches. "Oh no," I told him. "You need to put one of those back and choose another side. You need two different sides." After a moment's consideration, he returned one ice cream sandwich and hopefully pulled out...a frozen juice pop! Sorry kid, but nice try and thanks for the laugh.

And so the afternoon wore on, until finally I was checking out my last kid of the day...there was a sudden POP, followed by a sticky rain, and *poof* my computer died. What on Earth? I traced the source...as the server began shutting everything down and putting food away, she had slammed the lid on the milk refrigerator. Which happened to have a small container of orange juice resting on the lip. Thanks to...you guessed it...the Side Swap Pileup. The ensuing eruption of juice splattered both me and my last student, and tripped the surge protector on the computer.

I could make some sort of awful pun at this point, pertaining to the juice...pop....but, I'll abstain. I'm above that sort of thing, you know.

It brings all the boys to the yard

The dirtiest comment I've heard all week came unwittingly from the mouth of a sweet young man who looked like a church counselor.

After my shift, I was sitting at the computer in the lunch office trying to make the figures reconcile when the janitor dropped by and set a chocolate shake on the desk for me. Each Friday, the kids have the additional option of buying shakes, and at the end of lunch the janitor divvies up the leftovers.

At some point, a clean-cut, rather handsome young man (administration of some sort, I think) dropped by and was doing some computer work on the cashier terminals out in the cafeteria. He came into the office seeking a pen, and mistaking my cup for a pen/pencil holder, he reached around the monitor, dipped his hand into my shake and pulled back startled, getting chocolate shake everywhere! We had a good laugh about it, and I helped him clean it up. A few minutes later my fellow cashier passed by and said, "Oh, I'm sorry...have you met our new cashier?"

"Oh yes," he replied, flustered. "I got acquainted with her a few minutes ago when I stuck my fingers in her shake."

All's Fair

I'm embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed today. Oh, not the work itself, although the work isn't bad. The job is pretty physical, the kitchen gets rather hot, my "Choose Healthy! School Food Service" shirt gets a bit icky, and I come home with sore feet...but it's a straightforward job with plenty to keep me busy and very nice co-workers. No, on this day psychological war was waged against the children...and I enjoyed their squirming, oh yes.

The students at the intermediate school where I work are notoriously bad at keeping track of their debit cards, and this gets to be a big hassle at the end of the line. While some of them are just plain forgetful (and my mother would tell you that I fit that profile myself), most of them are clearly ignoring our pleas, preferring to simply memorize their numbers. I can understand the appeal to them, and if that system was working, I'd be on their side. But they forget the numbers, they type them into the keypad too fast, they enter them when the screen is still not cleared from the previous kid...it gets messy. Also, frankly, we told you, kids. Every day you 'forgot' it, in fact.

Today, when I arrived for my shift, my supervisor asked me to go into the deep freezer, retrieve the large box of ice cream sandwiches I would find there, and divide its contents between the two lines. Okay. She then wrote up copies of a sign - "FREE ICE CREAM WITH DEBIT CARD - NOT FOR SALE" - and posted them at each register. Her smile was positively impish.

We serve, on the average day, around five hundred students. I'd be very surprised if we gave away more than a hundred ice cream sandwiches today. And oh, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth that ensued! Sure, they were just little ice cream treats - but to the ten-year-old mind, missing out on a free reward is a big thing. They complained, they made excuses, they bargained. "I just left my card in my locker is all; can't I go get it?" Well no, honey. If you've got it at school and you're still regularly coming to lunch without it, our sympathy is low.

On a related note: due to some scheduling troubles and people being out, I've been doing a lot of serving lately instead of cashiering. I actually like this more - it's a more physical job, but I don't have to deal with the messed up accounts, balance my register, or worry about confiscating anyone's food. The downside, however, is that the kids can be rather rude. Some apparently don't know the words "please" and "thank you"; some merely blurt out the name of the item they want without using a full sentence; some merely point! I'm not a vending machine, folks.

Mind you, they don't do this with the other servers. The other ladies have been here a long time, they don't take it and they're not shy in correcting the kids. As for me, I'm new, I'm generally uncomfortable correcting other people's children, and my background in customer service has left me accustomed to being servile and polite to customers who aren't polite to me. And they can smell it on me. But I'm catching on, see. These kids are not my customers. They are students in their formative years, and I'm learning through observation that, even as a lunchlady, I'm not only permitted but expected to keep them in line in their dealings with me just as much as their teachers. And thus, my customer service programming finally broke today. Typical conversations went like this:

Kid: (perhaps with a slight gesture) Pizza.
Me: Yes. That is pizza.
(long pause.)
Kid: Uhhhh....and the salad. Pizza and salad.
Me: Yes, your powers of observation are very astute.
(longer pause...then, eventually:)
Kid: May I have the pizza and salad, please?
Me: Yes, you certainly may! Thank you for asking politely.

This repetition slowed down the line quite a bit today, but sweet googly moogly, I think they might larn something. Unfortunately, that something might just be "Wow, that new lunchlady is annoying."

You're a mean one, Mrs. Grinch

Today I worked the register totally on my own for the first time, no one standing over my shoulder to answer my questions as I went along and jump in if I start drowning. And I lived to tell the tale.

Kids can be so frustrating. Since I'm still pretty new at this, I'm much slower than the old cashier, so periodically the line would start to noticeably clump up between the server and my register. And they just can NOT hold on to those debit cards! So while it should go smoothly - kid swipes card, account appears on my screen, I make the proper debit and clear it - most of them either had to ask me to look up their account by name or they type in their account number on the pinpad beside the card reader. And they all try to punch it in like they've got somewhere to be real fast, leading to multiple attempts. And then the kids behind them will try to punch in THEIR numbers before I'm done with the current kid, making a general mess of things.

Also - why oh why do 5th graders give me cash in such a mess? The ones who paid me in cash for their lunches never gave me unfolded dollars. Even folded dollars would have been okay. I get crumpled wads, or dollars folded over together about four times, or Drunken Hobo Origami. Ai-yaa.

But I digress. 'Member when I said the school won't let 'em go hungry? That's not entirely true. I suppose if we truly did that, some kids could run up unmanageable tabs at the rate of $2.25 per day over a school year. We're supposed to float them for a few lunches, but after that we can't do it. We just give them a "peanut butter bar" and a milk. These things - they look like mini ice-cream sandwiches, wrapped in paper with the words "peanut butter jelly graham cracker sandwich" or something like that on them in plain print. I haven't seen the actual bar inside, and I'm not sure I want to. I was told today that if they're more than seven or eight dollars in the red, I'm not to ring up a lunch for them but instead give them one of those.

And sure enough, it came to that...just once, fortunately. And of course, they see the server before they see me, so she already had a lunch on her tray. Pizza Day. I had the dubious honor of letting her know how much she owed, taking away her pizza and salad, and handing over one of those abhorrent creations. She looked at me like I'd run over her puppy and then offered her a pet slug.

Okay. My supervisor reminded me that, if she's that far behind, the school has called her house at least twice to remind her parents to give her lunch money. At least a week and a half ago, what with the break and all. But I still felt awful.